Confederacy of Dunces, A - John Kennedy Toole [173]
Mr. Levy returned? His valve sent out a distress signal that established communication with his hands. He scratched the bumps on his paws and peered through the shutters, expecting to see several hirsute brutes from the hospital.
There on the porch stood Myrna in a shapeless olive drab corduroy car coat. Her black hair was braided into a pigtail that twisted under one ear and fell on her breast. A guitar was slung over her shoulders.
Ignatius was about to burst through the shutters, splintering slats and latches, and wrap that one hemplike pigtail around her throat until she turned blue. But reason won. He was not looking at Myrna; he was looking at an escape route. Fortuna had relented. She was not depraved enough to end this vicious cycle by throttling him in a straitjacket, by sealing him up in a cement block tomb lighted by fluorescent tubes. Fortuna wished to make amends. Somehow she had summoned and flushed Myrna minx from a subway tube, from some picket line, from the pungent bed of some Eurasian existentialist, from the hands of some epileptic Negro Buddhist, from the verbose midst of a group therapy session.
“Ignatius, are you in that dump?” Myrna demanded in her flat, direct, slightly hostile voice. She beat on the shutters again, squinting through her black-rimmed glasses. Myrna was not astigmatic; the lenses were clear glass; she wore the glasses to prove her dedication and intensity of purpose. Her dangling earring reflected the rays of the streetlight like tinkling glass Chinese ornaments. “Listen, I can tell there’s somebody in there. I heard you stomping around in that hall. Open up these crummy shutters.”
“Yes, yes, I’m here,” Ignatius cried. He tore at the shutters and pushed them open. “Thank Fortuna you’ve come.”
“Jesus. You look terrible. Like you’re having a nervous breakdown or something. Why the bandage? Ignatius, what’s the matter? Look how much weight you’ve gained. I’ve just been reading these pitiful signs out here on the porch. Boy, have you had it.”
“I’ve gone through hell,” Ignatius slobbered, pulling Myrna into the hall by the sleeve of her coat. “Why did you step out of my life, you minx? Your new hairdo is fascinating and cosmopolitan.” He snatched at her pigtail and pressed it to his wet moustache, kissing it vigorously. “The scent of soot and carbon in your hair excites me with suggestions of glamorous Gotham. We must leave immediately. I must go flower in Manhattan.”
“I knew something was wrong. But this. You are really in bad shape, Ig.”
“Quickly. To a motel. My natural impulses are screaming for release. Do you have any money on you?”
“Don’t put me on,” Myrna said angrily. She grabbed the soggy pigtail from Ignatius’s paws and threw it over her shoulder onto the guitar where it landed with a twang. “Look. Ignatius. I’m beat. I’ve been on the road since nine o’clock yesterday morning. As soon as I mailed you that letter about the Peace Party routine, I said to myself, ‘Myrna. Listen. This guy needs more than just a letter. He needs your help. He’s sinking fast. Are you dedicated enough to save a mind rotting right before your eyes? Are you committed enough to salvage the wreckage of that mentality?’ I came out of the post office and got in my car and just started driving. All night. Straight. I mean, the more I thought about that wild Peace Party telegram, the more upset I got.”
Apparently Myrna was very hard up for causes in Manhattan.
“I don’t blame you,” Ignatius cried. “Wasn’t that telegram horrible? A deranged fantasy. I’ve been in the depths of depression for weeks. After all these years that I’ve stuck by my mother’s side, she has decided to get married and wants me out of the way. We must leave. I can’t stand this house another moment.”
“What? Who’d marry her?”
“Thank God you understand. You can see how ludicrous and impossible everything has become.”
“Where is she? I’d like to outline for that woman what she’s done to you.”
“She’s out somewhere failing her blood test at the moment.